Timeline

We had a great time asking and answering questions and seeing where things fell in history

This week I brought out the Adam’s Chart of History. It is 25′ long and 2′ tall and it shows the genealogies depicted in the Bible as well as the ebb and flow of nations. This was intensely interesting to the Papua New Guineans here and I spent 6 hours mostly answering questions. In many cultures around the world, genealogies are extremely important because it shows your status, your alliances, and your claim to the land you live on.

It is interesting that most of the people here have similar ancestral stories of Noah’s flood, the Tower of Babel (how languages came to be), Cain and Abel and Creation.

Here is a closeup of some of the panels in the time line

Many of the important questions to them centered around “Where did Cain get his wife?”, “How did different races appear?”, and “Why are there so many different languages?” The chart also cleared up a great deal of confusion as to when events in the Bible happened. It was hard for some of them to understand how far back in history things happened until they saw the time line. To many people living in a culture where time is not important, 200 years ago is not much different than 2000 years ago.